Run Away
by Moonsp1r1t
Summary: The events leading to Desmond running away from the Farm on his sixteenth birthday. One shot.


There were fields scattered around, broken up by dirt paths zigzagging their way through each one, their patterns forming a mosaic in the landscape. The fields were punctuated by the houses of the families that lived at the Farm, the training ring, an obstacle course, and the Barn, which was located at the highest point of the area.

The Barn looked like it was worn by the elements and could do with a new coat of paint. It looked like that it was just an average farmhouse, the kind that would hold some kind of large livestock. However, everyone living in their little community knew exactly what it was; it was an armory.

With some frequency, the adults would go into the Barn to plan; the few times the children and teenagers were allowed inside, they could see that the walls were lined with guns, swords, and knives, among other forms of artillery. In the very center of the room was a large table, usually with a map of the Farm and the surrounding area. The Barn itself was fortified so that it could also act as a bunker, if necessary, although that "if" always sounded like a "when."

Below the Barn was a series of tunnels. A couple lead to the extra food storage, although the largest of which lead out into the Black Hills in case of an attack and a need to evacuate the compound.

The whole Farm was surrounded by a stone wall, sloped and perfectly smooth, so that it would be impossible to climb from either side.

From Desmond's bedroom window, he could see almost the entirety of the Farm, as his house was closest to the Barn. After training for the day, Desmond always went back upstairs to his bedroom. The first several minutes would be spent tending to his injuries in privacy, where his father couldn't get on his case about it.

"They're superficial," he would always say, "and they happen all the time. There's no point in patching yourself up every day for such minimal injuries. We'll run out of supplies at this rate."

When he didn't say that, he said, "Perhaps if you learned to dodge or block better you wouldn't get hurt as often."

Afterwards, the teenager would spend his time staring up at the ceiling or out the window; there was a time where he would read, but the few books he had access to he practically memorized, not to mention that the vast majority of them were about fighting techniques or philosophy.

Desmond's favorite book by far was an old one about New York. It was a travel guide, likely used for a long forgotten mission to the city years ago. He had reread it several times, many more times than he reread the other books. In fact, by the time that Desmond was fifteen, the book was falling apart.

He often thought about leaving the Farm and going to see the city himself, but there was no way that he would be able to convince his father to let him go. Desmond frequently thought about running away and had actually packed his things away several times, but half way through he would tell himself that he was being stupid and that there was no way that a fifteen (almost sixteen!) year old boy with little to no knowledge of the real world would be able to survive out there on his own.

"Desmond!"

Desmond winced, jerking abruptly out of his daydream. He glanced toward his bedroom door nervously, trying to remember if he had done anything wrong recently; anything that could potentially make his father mad. He couldn't think of anything specific, but that wasn't really saying much.

"Desmond! Come down here!"

His father _sounded_ calm, but once again, that didn't necessarily mean anything. Desmond lurched to his feet and slipped quietly out of his bedroom. He headed down the stairs, mentally preparing himself to get into a shouting match.

Desmond found William Miles sitting at his desk, looking over a few reports. Desmond didn't feel the need to announce himself, as he knew for a fact that his father had heard him enter the room.

"Bad news; I'm afraid your mother won't be able to make it back for your birthday. She was expected to be back tonight, but her mission is taking longer than expected," Bill said without looking up at his only son.

"Oh," said Desmond blankly. "Okay."

Desmond's birthday, to his eyes, had never been a large priority in his family. It seemed like at least one of his parents was missing when they were celebrating, if not both of them. The last birthday he had had when both of his parents were there was when he was eleven. When he was thirteen, they had forgotten his birthday entirely.

He didn't blame them entirely; according to the brief explanation he had received from his mother five days later, they had gotten some intelligence that an attack was planned on the Farm, and they needed to prepare accordingly.

"We could be attacked at any minute," his parents always said. In fact, Desmond was certain that he had heard that same thing every single day of his life. "We have to be ready."

Desmond has always been ready in case of an attack. Out of insistence from his father, he carried a hunting knife on his person at all times. He also kept another one within reach of his bed, too, to appease his mother.

If Desmond was honest with himself, it was rather exciting at first. When he was younger, he would always imagine the enemy swarming their home, and Desmond would single handedly save everyone there. When he was a little bit older, he recognized that it was a foolish daydream to imagine saving everyone, although he still found the idea of an attack exhilarating; it would be a wonderfully action-packed change from the same thing every day.

Now, though, Desmond was almost sixteen and nothing had never happened. No attacks, no nothing. He even found himself wondering more and more frequently if the enemies everyone spoke about were real. Desmond wanted to believe his parents and everything he had been told his entire life; he really did. However, he saw no proof of anything.

Desmond lingered another few moments by his father's desk, but Bill did not look up again. Not that he expected him to. Still, Desmond had been shouted at more than once for "walking away in the middle of a conversation" when he thought that his dad was done talking to him.

Eventually, Bill seemed to realize that his son was still standing there. He glanced at the teenager with raised eyebrows. "Did you need something, Desmond? Because I'm very busy and I don't have any time to spare."

Desmond cringed. "No. Sorry. I don't need anything."

The teenager may as well have never responded in the first place because Bill had already turned his attention back to the reports. Desmond sighed quietly and made his way back upstairs. He flopped back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

* * *

Desmond was startled awake by the alarms. He sat up groggily, confused, as he had not remembered falling asleep. He slipped out of bed, nearly tripping over his tangled covers, and glanced out the window. The darkened grounds of the Farm were briefly lit up with the flashing red lights on the sides of each house.

He groaned, but did as he was trained to do. Desmond grabbed a flashlight, not bothering to put on shoes before he headed downstairs; last time he had stopped to get ready, his father had shouted at him loud enough that the teenager was certain that Bill's voice could be heard across the country.

Desmond clicked the flashlight on and headed outside, the cool morning air biting at his bare feet. He walked along the paths he knew by heart, the beam from the flashlight bobbing around before him as he walked, making his way to the Barn. Upon reaching the building, he punched in the code on the keypad to unlock it (13031987). The code was also something that he had been made to memorize.

The teenager pushed his way into the building, collapsing against the wall. Of course he was the first one to arrive; it had been planned that way. Desmond would go before everyone else and open up the Barn… then those who were too old, too young, or too injured to potentially fight. Soon enough, Desmond's mother had promised, he would be old enough to fight and they would have to get someone else to open the Barn.

It wasn't long before everyone else trickled in; Desmond shut and locked the door behind them. There was not anyone Desmond's same age. The closest was Tyler, who was twelve. The youngest person there was Emily, who was two. Emily's grandfather, Richard, was the eldest person. Richard regarded the others with an expression that was verging on disdain, while Emily sat on his lap, singing twinkle twinkle in typical baby babble. Bill had insisted that Richard retire about two years ago after he had suffered from a badly broken leg on his last mission.

"You know, when I was your age, I was out there fighting with everyone else," Richard said to Desmond, making him jump slightly at the abrupt break in the silence.

"I doubt they're even fighting," muttered Desmond. "It's probably just another drill."

Richard sneered and cuffed Desmond on the back of his head, the teenager's flinch not enough to dodge. "There's a reason we're doing these drills, boy. They will attack. They're attacking right now. You're what- fifteen?"

"Sixteen, now," he muttered, not that anyone heard him.

"You should be out there helping protect everyone," snapped Richard. "I did when I was your age."

"Things are different, now, you may have noticed," Desmond muttered. "It's 2003, not the fifties."

"I know that," Richard said.

"I want to fight! I want to help!" Tyler announced.

"Perhaps when you're thirteen," said the old man.

"That's what my parents said," said Tyler.

"You however…" Richard turned towards Desmond again. "I have great respect for your parents, Bill in particular, but they baby you."

Desmond regarded the old man resentfully, remaining silent as he hugged his knees to his chest.

Richard turned and addressed the rest of the people hiding out in the room, the vast majority of which were younger than Tyler. "Kids these days are so spoiled."

"Spoiled," Emily echoed cheerfully.

* * *

As Desmond had suspected from the beginning, it was a drill. Or some "false information." Or… Desmond didn't know what. Frankly, he had gotten to the point where he did not care. Nothing _ever_ happened. He didn't even really think that the Templars that everyone constantly talked about even _existed_.

After leaving the Barn and returning home, Desmond decided that there would be no point in trying to fall back asleep again. He instead thumbed through his New York book again obsessively until the first rays of dawn broke through his window. When he went downstairs, Bill did not even mention his son's birthday.

The lack of sleep made Desmond irritable and more likely to snap at the little things. In training that day, it had even gotten to the point where Tyler started to cry and his instructor sent Desmond away.

He knew what that meant; his teacher would talk to his father and then the two of them would have an argument which would lead to another argument later about how all of Desmond's injuries are superficial and it wouldn't be necessary to waste the Farm's medical supplies.

Thus, Desmond did his best to hide away for most of the day, pretending that he was not there. He day dreamed about leaving the Farm and never going back.

As always, though, his father found him with little to no effort.

"Come on," said Bill, handing his son a knife. "Let's go practice; make up for the training you missed today."

Desmond took the knife glumly, looking at his reflection in the blade. He followed his father back to the training ring, the sun starting its descent towards the horizon, their shadows elongating. Bill climbed into the ring with much more grace than his son. He waited for Desmond to raise his knife at him before he leveled his own.

* * *

There were exactly two medical professionals who lived on the Farm; Dr. Natasha Gray and Nurse Mike Bradley. Desmond would always go to them if his injuries were out of the scope of his ability to heal following his arguments with Bill. As such, the teenager had a reputation among the both of him as being clumsy and not having very good reflexes in training. Because to everyone in the Farm, including Desmond himself, the outcomes of his arguments with his father were just that; training. It was much like how in other families the father would take the son out to play sports.

Except they were assassins, or so everyone kept saying. Of course it was bound to be more violent than the average game of catch between father and son.

As Mike was out on mission, on Desmond's birthday he was treated by Dr. Gray. He sat very still, thinking about all of the things he hated about the Farm and his life, while her dexterous brown hands helped to stick up the cut that was bisecting his lips. Desmond could taste the blood, but it was not his worst injury up to date.

It was his own fault, really. Desmond knew that he did have a tendency to provoke his father when they were fighting and that his father lashed out violently when he was angry. Desmond had merely made the mistake of expressing his inner doubts aloud in the middle of their argument ("This is such bullshit! None of this is even real! Why do I have to bother doing any of this anyways, when it's all just some conspiracy theory garbage that you made up-"). He knew what would happen because it happened every time. He also knew that when he woke up the next day and Bill saw the injury he would apologize like he always did.

Unless his father didn't see the injury.

Once Dr. Gray was done stitching, she moved to get a large cotton bandage to press against the injury but Desmond stopped her. "No," he said curtly, "I'd rather not have a bandage; it'll just get in the way."

"Are you sure?" Dr. Gray said, raising her eyebrows. "It'll be more likely to leave a scar if we don't use the medicinal-"

"It'll do that anyway," said Desmond irritably. His mother would throw a fit if she saw it. "It… well, I just haven't eaten today and it will get in the way."

Dr. Gray paused for a moment before nodding. "That's your choice. Come see me in a couple of weeks and we'll see about getting those stitches out, okay?"

"Alright," said Desmond, but they both knew that was a promise that would not be kept. Desmond was the sort of person that liked to do things on his own, and that included healing himself. Even if he was still at the Farm.

Desmond decided, as he walked back home from where Dr. Gray lived, that that was the final straw. He was going to leave and never come back. He decided that he would rather _die_ than ever see the Farm again.

Desmond's parents wouldn't miss him, that much he knew; he believed himself to be a nuisance to them and it would simply be better if he were gone. That way they wouldn't have to think about him and how poorly he was doing in training anymore. In fact, if Desmond thought about it in _just_ the right way, his parents would even be _happy_ to see the back of him.

No one else would miss Desmond either. He didn't have any friends, he frustrated his teacher, and Dr. Gray certainly had other things to be worrying about than Desmond's frequent injuries in training. Everyone else could not care less if Desmond simply… went away. Disappeared. It would not affect them in any way whatsoever.

Desmond had had these thoughts before, of course, but he had never gotten far in packing away his things. This time, though, he was fed up. He was really going to run away from home and never come back. It would be difficult, he knew; he had nowhere to go, no plan, nothing. However, the alternative was unbearable. He couldn't stay in the Farm anymore; he would either die or go insane.

He managed to get back inside of his home without his father noticing, but that was primarily because Bill was focusing on more paperwork. Desmond stopped briefly to eat some leftovers out of the fridge before he moved up to his room, snatching the black backpack he had stashed underneath his bed, already partially filled with canned food and $100 cash. He had taken it from the last time he had started to try to run away, along with a brief plan to get out into the outside world via the tunnels underneath the Barn.

Methodically, Desmond silently began to pack away his things. He began by folding clothes, eventually just resorting to stuffing everything in unceremoniously, including his New York book and one of his knives. He also managed to cram an extra pair of shoes in there with everything else. He didn't _quite_ manage to get everything he owned in the backpack, but Desmond recognized that sacrifices had to be made.

Desmond slung the backpack over his shoulders and slipped out of his room. He did not acknowledge his father on his way out, nor did Bill acknowledge Desmond. Stepping out the front door, he swiftly made his way towards the Barn, retracing the same path he had taken that morning, exhilaration clouding his mind. He was going to be _free._


End file.
